Myriad Calamities - Chapter 15
As the car entered Nanpu University, its leaves ablaze with color, Xu Haicheng felt a bittersweet mix of familiarity and melancholy. This was where Fang Li had once studied. When she was in university, he worked at a police station in the Tongyuan suburbs. He had traveled for hours to see her, only to be met with her cold indifference. Unable to harbor resentment towards her, he took it out on this tree-lined campus, feeling that the abundance of trees had stifled people's hearts. Now, looking around, he still saw many trees, but no longer felt troubled, only melancholy.
He had called beforehand, so Ma Junnan was waiting for him at home. None of his family members were home; perhaps they were deliberately avoiding him to make it easier for the two to talk. The Ma family home wasn't large, but its decor was extremely elegant, exuding a tranquil and scholarly atmosphere. Unfortunately, the lights were too bright, changing the entire ambiance; even the scholarly scent was tinged with the glint of blades.
The two exchanged pleasantries and then sat down separately.
Two days had passed, and Ma Junnan had recovered considerably. Although he still had thin skin covering his bony frame, he no longer possessed the breathtaking ferocity he had displayed on their first meeting. His demeanor was also no longer as timid as it had been two days prior, displaying a scholar's composure. However, the atmosphere between the two was far from friendly; though there was no malice, it felt like a taut string.
Xu Haicheng briefly explained his purpose for coming.
Even without him saying it, Ma Junnan knew why he had come. He looked at the chandelier in the living room and said, "If I could, I really wouldn't want to bring up these things again..." The sound of dripping water from Julong Cave seemed to travel through time and space, each drop landing on his eardrums. The bright white light in front of him suddenly disappeared, replaced by the flashlight beams of Julong Cave shrouded in darkness.
...Xu Haicheng ordered everyone to lower their heads, and the Ghost Gu lunged at the back of his head from above. The soldier standing opposite him saw this and instinctively raised his gun, a burst of bullets spurting from the dark muzzle. Xu Haicheng, unaware that the target was the Ghost Gu, raised his pistol and returned fire. Taking advantage of this opportunity, the Ghost Gu pounced on his neck, and he began to lose his humanity, killing in a frenzy. The other soldiers, not understanding what was happening, were driven by their survival instincts to return fire, and in the blink of an eye, gunfire erupted in the cave.
The cave was spacious, offering no cover or room to maneuver. Everyone was standing in a circle around Liang Ping's body, so it wasn't long before they were all shot, screams filling the air. It's unclear whose bullet struck Xu Haicheng in the head, but he slowly slumped to the ground. The ghostly worm flew out from behind his neck again, heading towards the others. Having heard of its terrifying nature, everyone opened fire, finally reducing the ghostly worm to shreds. However, most of the rescue team members were already dead or wounded.
But the ordeal was not over yet.
A strange, noisy sound came from above, gradually approaching. Ma Junnan was already very familiar with this sound, and fear, like the Qiantang River tide, overwhelmed the dam in his heart.
"Bats, thousands upon thousands of bats swooped down, a dark mass..." Ma Junnan's facial muscles twitched, his eyes still fixed on the light bulb, but what he saw were countless black bats circling down from the cave ceiling. Perhaps it was from that moment that he began to fear blackness and darkness.
Countless bats swarmed down, leaving everyone disoriented and disoriented. Their flashlights fell to the ground, rolling away on the ground. The light swirled in circles, illuminating the bats' sharp claws and red eyes. Ma Junnan, lying on the ground, saw a nearby corpse instantly covered by a dense swarm of bats. Unable to withstand the terror any longer, he blacked out and lost consciousness.
After he finished speaking, there was a brief silence in the room. Ma Junnan was still immersed in fear and could not extricate himself, while Xu Haicheng began to recall what happened next, which was what Chen Chen told him after he woke up in the hospital.
Upon receiving the emergency distress signal from the rescue team, the garrison in Jingyun City immediately dispatched two helicopters. Because the Jingyun mountainous area is characterized by high mountains and dense forests, locating Julong Cave took considerable time. As the six rescue soldiers entered the cave, they were immediately met with a pungent smell of blood. The winding stream gurgled melodiously, but the water was red.
They followed the groans to the small cave where the incident had occurred. A flashlight lying on the ground was still glowing, casting a slanted light on the dark cave walls. The smell inside was even more unbearable than outside; the stench of blood was almost suffocating. They slowly scanned the area with their flashlight, their hearts sinking. The ground was littered with dismembered limbs and covered with black bat carcasses…
One of the soldiers wrote an email to a friend after returning home, mentioning the incident, saying: "At that moment, I really felt like I had walked into hell..."
Unsure of the dangers lurking within Julong Cave, and knowing the seriously injured men urgently needed medical attention, the six soldiers dared not linger. They quickly carried the six wounded back to the helicopter and departed. After receiving their report, the unit dispatched ten soldiers to return to Julong Cave and retrieve the bodies.
Subsequently, the Nanpu Municipal Government, the Jingyun Municipal Government, and the Jingyun Local Garrison jointly investigated the events that occurred in the deep mountains of Jingyun involving the Nanpu University delegation and the rescue team. Xu Haicheng did not have permission to read the report, but he was quite clear about some of the contents.
Casualties among the Nampa University delegation:
Liang Ping: Died from a head injury; most of his body was burned.
Ma Junnan: Leg injury, mental instability.
Wang Dong: It is said that he died, but his body was not found, so he was classified as missing.
Xiang Yuliang: Died after being shot four times.
Lu Mingjie: Missing.
Fang Li: Missing.
Xu Lili: Died from psychological trauma.
Casualties among the military rescue team stationed in Jingyun:
He Aijun (squad leader): He was shot three times (the fatal shot was fired by Xu Haicheng's sidearm).
Fang Ping'an: He was shot five times, and the bullet hit his heart, causing his death (the fatal shot was fired by Xu Haicheng's sidearm).
Wen Jiadong: He was shot three times, and died from a gunshot wound to the brain (the fatal shot was fired by Xu Haicheng's sidearm).
Xi Erhu (guide): He was shot four times (the fatal shot was fired by Xu Haicheng's sidearm).
Lin Hong (military doctor): He was shot three times and died from excessive blood loss.
Section 31: Chapter Six, Part Three of the Abiding Calamity (2)
Hong Qingyou: He was shot four times and died from excessive blood loss.
Song Shangmin: Severely injured, he committed suicide after waking up and learning that he would be paralyzed.
Liu Xiangdong: He was shot twice and is seriously injured. There is a possibility that he will become a vegetable.
Qi Dawei: Shot twice, seriously injured, and mentally unstable.
Hong Qing: Shot three times, suffered a nervous breakdown.
Yuan Ping: He was bitten to death by a python.
Wang Jinsong: Killed by a python.
Casualties among police officers of the Nanpu City Public Security Bureau:
Xi Sanhu (guide): Death.
Wu Chunbo (guide): Missing.
Zhang Xiaofeng: Missing.
Xu Haicheng: Shot three times, seriously injured.
The report emphasizes that four people died from shots fired by Xu Haicheng's sidearm because all four shots were fired at close range, hitting vital organs. In other words, the person who fired the bullets clearly intended to kill their target. Therefore, as soon as Xu Haicheng regained consciousness, he was investigated to determine if he was responsible for the close-range shootings. However, his memory only extended to the period before the gunfight, and he knew nothing about what happened afterward.
The investigation team administered a lie detector test to him and found that he was not lying.
Considering that the other survivors were either mentally unstable or in a vegetative state and unlikely to tell the truth, in order to investigate the truth of the gunfight at Julong Cave, the Jingyun garrison sent soldiers back to Julong Cave to find Xu Haicheng's sidearm in order to extract fingerprints and find the murderer. However, this time the four soldiers encountered a python. The huge snake slithered nimbly in the cave, and the four fled in panic.
The investigation ultimately came to nothing.
Comparing Chen Chen's and Ma Junnan's accounts, nothing seemed amiss at first glance, but upon closer examination, numerous problems arose. Xu Haicheng pondered for a moment, then asked the most crucial question: "Professor Ma, you said I was afflicted with the Ghost Gu, and you've seen the Ghost Master and Professor Liang Ping, both afflicted with it, and they didn't survive. Why am I still alive?"